Category Archives: General

Sustainable urban planning MOU signed

Posted on 4 Jun 2011 | Comments Off on Sustainable urban planning MOU signed

The Centre for Liveable Cities has signed an memorandum of understanding with the Urban Land Institute to conduct joint research and conferences on building sustainable cities for the future.

At the signing ceremony, representatives from both organisations highlighted urban planning challenges in Singapore.

These include planning with an ageing demographics and increasing population density in mind.

They also said private-public partnerships can help greatly in solving urban planning challenges. One such example is the land sales programme by the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore.

Khoo Teng Chye, executive director, Centre for Liveable Cities, said: “If you take the example of Singapore, we are already five million people, and we continue to have economic growth and population growth.

“I think the challenge for cities like Singapore, going ahead, is how do we grapple with making sure that we can be sustainable and yet maintain a high quality of life for our cities.”

The Centre for Liveable Cities is a think tank on urban governance, jointly established by the Ministry of National Development and the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources.

The Urban Land Institute is an international non-profit research organisation for land use and real estate.

Source : CNA – 3 Jun 2011

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HDB to look into the possibility of allowing cats in flats

Posted on 4 Jun 2011 | Comments Off on HDB to look into the possibility of allowing cats in flats

The Government will look into the possibility of allowing cats in HDB flats, Minister of State (National Development and Manpower) Tan Chuan-Jin told MediaCorp yesterday.

Brigadier-General (NS) Tan was responding to MediaCorp’s queries following National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan’s blog post yesterday on encouraging cats to be sterilised instead of being culled.

Adding that BG (NS) Tan will help him tackle the issue – given the former’s interest in this area – Mr Khaw said he would like the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) to “seriously consider reviewing its culling programme for cats”.

Mr Khaw noted that killing the cats was not the best solution. The right thing to do is for cat lovers to own the problem and to eliminate problems caused by irresponsible behaviour, he added.

When contacted last night, BG (NS) Tan said that allowing cats to be kept in HDB flats was one of the issues they were looking into.

According to the HDB’s website, flat owners “are not allowed to keep cats in HDB flats, as it is generally difficult to confine cats within the flat premises”. It added: “Nuisance caused by cats such as shedding of their fur, defecating/urinating in public areas or even the caterwauling sounds that they make can cause a lot of disturbance, which affects the environment and disrupts neighbourliness in our housing estates.”

Cat Welfare Society vice-president Veron Lau welcomed BG (NS) Tan’s comment but she said the society would like to work with HDB and AVA to educate people to be responsible cat owners.

Last year, the AVA put down 5,100 stray cats.

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) executive director Deirdre Moss said it was “already very happy” that Mr Khaw brought up sterilisation as an option instead of culling.

Said Ms Moss: “In addition to this good news, we are overjoyed that (BG Tan) has agreed to look into allowing cats to be kept as pets in HDB flats. It’s very encouraging that the minister is promoting kindness to animals.”

Source : Today – 4 Jun 2011

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